


Row Your Boat

by jamespadfoot



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 5b fic, Canon Compliant, F/M, Underworld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 18:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5976111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamespadfoot/pseuds/jamespadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like he's never heard of tales of the Underworld. Or it's God. Or the many winding rivers that take departed souls to one of three ultimate ends. It's just, well, when he pictured death, he never quite imagined THIS. | A story about Killian Jones and his family - the one who is waiting for him in death, and the one who is defying death to bring him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Row Your Boat

He wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since he had heaved his last real breath - days perhaps, maybe even months. There was no way to tell of time down here. Or was it up? Perhaps somewhere in between, for they said this was neither heaven nor hell, but a place for people who simply couldn’t let go of the lives they had left behind. 

Liam sighed softly, lifting the mug of ale to his lips. 

“Did ya hear?”

Liam turned to the owner of the voice, swallowing his drink languidly before responding, “Hear what?”

Droopy-eyed Joe leaned closer, mouth upturned as he said quietly, “Theophilus has succumbed.”

Liam stilled. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“Aye, heard it from Joseph Ambrosias, who heard it from Theophilus himself, I swear.” 

“Heard what, exactly?” 

Droopy-eyed Joe moved back on his chair, resting his forearms on the bar as he swigged half his ale. “Theo was, well, weary. I mean I know, who isn’t, but Hades made him an offering of sorts. Joseph didn’t know exactly what it was, just said that Theo had waited what had to be lifetimes down here, and that his best chance now was move on. Said he’d held on too long, that they didn’t tell you that split second choice you made at death would linger so long. Or the terms that came with it.” 

“Aye, the terms that came with it,” Liam echoed numbly, the news leaving him him hollow and dry. If Theo had truly succumbed, that left only Emmet, and him, the last of the crew.

“So am I to prepare for you to leave too?” 

“What? Why would you ask that?” 

Joe shrugged, his too thin shirt pulling across his beefy shoulders as he did so. “It’s just, well it’s you and that ponce of a fellow left now, the originals. If you’re going to leave, I’ll have to go find new friends I suppose.”

Liam threw the man a grin, touching the rim of his glass to his, “Sentimental, are we?”

“A bit. You _were_ the first person who helped me find my way when I get here. I owe you, I suppose. If you’re leaving, suppose I should throw a party, yeah?” 

“Hmm, the only way I leave is if my brother passes through these doors. I will not succumb.” 

Joe frowned, eyes ducking to the floor as they met Liam’s steady gaze, “About that. It’s not all I’ve heard from yonder.” 

“Oh?”

“Much has been happening in a place north of here. Near where Acheron meets Styx is a town where the living has said to invade Hades.”

“The living? Here?” 

“Aye, I swear it. Not just one, but a band of them trying to retrieve a soul of the departed.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a retelling of Hercules’ myth?”

Joe glared at him, immediately annoyed. A terribly short-tempered man, Joe had stayed by the banks of Acheron to wait for the man he blamed for his mortal death, though as everyone who knew him had come to known, had been no fault of the stranger. As the story went, by Joe’s own retelling, the stranger had accidentally dropped his beverage on a well-dressed Joe, who then had to return home to change his outfit, and rush to the dinner party he was running late for. Only, in his haste, he’d been less than vigilant as he should have been, and had driven his motorcar into the river Thames. 

At the banks of Acheron, before Charon could ask if he’d like to continue his journey, to either Elysium, Asphodel or Tarturus, as all souls eventually must, Joe had jumped out before the boat had even stopped moving, vowing to wait for the stranger and make the journey with him - one he vowed to make as unpleasant as possible. 

“Alright, let’s say the information was genuine, my friend,” Liam conceded gently, “how does this bear on us?”

A glint of steel, one Liam had come to recognise in the ruthless pirates he had cut down as duty in the King’s Navy, flashed in Joe’s eyes. Hot-tempered as he was, the man was also terribly cunning; knew when to strike so the iron would pierce the hardest. Feeling very much like he was the fish about to be speared, Liam merely raised an eyebrow, exuding nonchalance. 

“The deal Theo made, well Joe didn’t know _exactly_ what is was, but it had to do with the blonde warrior _threatening_ Hades himself, with a blade forged from Prometheus himself, demanding to see… well, Killian Jones.” 

If Liam Geoffrey Jones could die a mortal death, he’d have done so in that exact moment.


End file.
